タイタニック号乗客の手紙、競売へ　ウルグアイ

【モンテビデオＡＦＰ＝時事】ウルグアイの首都モンテビデオで３０日、北大西洋で沈没した豪華客船タイタニック号に乗っていたウルグアイ人実業家が書いた手紙が、競売にかけられる。開始価格は１万２０００ドル（約１７０万円）、落札予想価格は１万５０００～２万５０００ドル（約２１０万～約３５０万円）。競売会社ソリリャが明らかにした。（写真は北大西洋で沈没した豪華客船タイタニック号に乗っていたウルグアイ人実業家ラモン・アルタガベイティア・ゴメス氏が書いた手紙。競売会社ソリリャ提供）
　手紙は、当時７１歳だった家ラモン・アルタガベイティア・ゴメスさんが兄弟のアドルフォさん宛てに記したもので、２枚にわたる。１枚は両面にメッセージが書き込まれている。
　ソリリャによると、手紙は沈没の４日前、タイタニック号が最後に立ち寄ったアイルランドのクイーンズタウン（現コーブ）から投函された。
　アルタガベイティア・ゴメスさんはぬれた跡が残る手紙で、１等船室の豪華さに驚嘆し、「すべてが新しくぜいたくだ」と記している。
　手紙には、アドルフォさんが記した「親愛なる私の兄弟ラモンが書いた最後の手紙」との手書きのメモも残されている。
　タイタニック号は１９１２年、乗客・乗員２２２４人を乗せて英イングランドから米ニューヨークに向かう初航海中に氷山に衝突して沈没、１５００人以上が死亡した。タイタニック号の残骸は８５年に発見された。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/06/22-17:03）

A letter written by a Uruguayan passenger on the Titanic will go on auction in Montevideo next week with a starting price of $12,000, an auction house has announced.
The Titanic continues to inspire intrigue to this day, with a frantic search now under way for a tourist submersible that went missing Sunday on its way to see the wreck more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the surface of the North Atlantic.
The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.
The wreck was found in 1985.
The letter to be auctioned on June 30, was written by 71-year-old businessman Ramon Artagaveytia Gomez (1840-1912) to his brother Adolfo on two pages, one of them covered in writing on both sides.
It was sent from Queenstown, Ireland, on the transatlantic cruise ship's last mainland mail stop just four days before the sinking, according to the Zorilla auction house.
In the moisture-stained missive, Artagaveytia Gomez marvels at his opulent first class surroundings, writing: everything is new and rich.
The letter included a handwritten note added by the recipient: The last letter that my dear brother Ramon wrote.
The letter should sell for between $15,000 and $25,000, according to Zorilla.
It will be sold with other historic items that include artifacts from another vessel sunk in the Atlantic: the Nazi battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
The Graf Spee's captain, Hans Langsdorff, scuttled the battleship -- one of the Third Reich's largest -- on December 17, 1939, following the Battle of the River Plate, off the coast of Montevideo.
The Nazi warship was used to attack commercial vessels in the Atlantic until it was intercepted by two British cruisers and one from the New Zealand navy.
The auction items include a pair of battleship binoculars and a crew member's dress jacket.